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It is not easily transported without the underlying medium, nor is it so easily extracted for copying (consider copying a sculpture). The point, of course, is comparative: Bits still need to be stored someplace, and even a sculpture can be copied, but the difference is so large—several orders of magnitude and constantly increasing with advancing technology—that the experience from the individual's viewpoint is qualitatively different.

The liberation of content from the medium has unsettling consequences for the protection of IP in digital form. Until very recently, intellectual works have been produced and distributed largely as analog works embedded in a physical artifact (e.g., printed books, movies on video tape). IP law and practice have been worked out in the context of such artifacts, and much of our comfort with IP law is based on the familiar properties of information closely bound to a physical substrate. Digital information changes those properties in substantial ways.

Digital information is plastic, easily searched and indexed, and easily cross-indexed. It is plastic in the sense that it is easily changed. Although a paper book is difficult to alter and hard to search even with a good index, online text can be changed easily, for instance, by adding and rearranging paragraphs. Coupled with digital transmission, plasticity of information confers, along with great advantages, the potential for fraudulent acts such as plagiarism or forgery.13

In addition, although traditional documents are static—a printed book contains the same words from one moment to the next—digital documents can be dynamic, changing from moment to moment or offering different views. For example, articles posted on the Web often undergo revision in response to comments from readers. Short of making a (static) local copy, how does one cite such a thing, if it may say something different tomorrow? Even with a static local copy, who is to say what the document once said at a particular point in time, if there are at least two different versions? The plasticity of digital information could have a significant impact on the nature and value of citations and on scholarly research.

The ease of searching and indexing digital information enormously facilitates the creation of derivative works of unusual forms.14 Consider

13The use of a digital signature (see Appendix E) may be of some assistance by providing a way to ''sign" a digital document. If the document is subsequently altered, there will be a detectable mismatch between the signature and the document. Large-scale use of digital signatures requires a substantial infrastructure that is only now emerging, with the growth of e-commerce.

14A "derivative work" is a work based on one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version,

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